Ciao! Questo contenuto è disponibile anche in Italiano. 
Hazelnut cake
The taste of freshly baked bread. The first slender asparagus on a market stall. A sudden childhood memory stirred by the smell of roasted strawberries. A mind-blowing dining experience in a rural restaurant. Creating memories with Livia rolling our sourdough crackers on a Sunday afternoon. Where would you share it?
With this question, comes the evolution of my food writing.
When I started Juls’ Kitchen fourteen years ago, on this very day, my answer was here, on the blog. This is where I learnt to write about food, where I actually discovered I liked to write about food, and that it could be a profession.
On the blog, over the years, I locked in some of my most cherished memories: my jump in the food writing world, when I met Tommaso, our wedding, the arrival of Livia, and when I became a mum. There was a thrill in writing a blog post, in picking the right recipe that would suit the moment, a seasonal occasion, or simply my mood.
Today, in our newsletter Letters from Tuscany, I share the evolution of my food writing, from a blog to Substack. It took me almost two years to find my voice on Substack because I had to make up with the idea that I was not cheating on my blog when I was sharing my recipes and stories there. Read it here and head over to the newsletter to share your two cents on the evolution of food writing.
RECIPE. Torta di nocciole – Hazelnut cake
Today, to celebrate this personal milestone, I share a hazelnut cake that you already loved on Instagram. It is a moist cake, with the nutty flavour of hazelnuts enhanced by a spoonful of unsweetened cocoa powder.
This hazelnut cake, inspired by the classic Piedmontese torta di nocciole, is surprising in its simplicity: the recipe is adapted from the torta di nocciole of Nonna Genia, a brilliant cookbook about Langhe cuisine, the hilly area in Piedmont famous for wine grapes, white truffles, hazelnuts, and heritage fruit varieties. This precious book helped me in the research of local recipes for our cookbook, Cucina Povera. The cake is so simple that, when mentioning the required tools to make it, the authors Beppe Lodi e Luciano De Giacomi simply list a bowl, a wooden spoon, and a cake pan (un’insalatiera, una forma da torte, un cucchiaio). I knew immediately this was right up my alley.
Make the hazelnut cake for breakfast, serve it with a hot cup of tea, and smother it with raspberry jam. For an after-dinner treat, serve the cake with an espresso and a coffee or chocolate icing.
Hazelnut cake
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 200 grams caster sugar
- 100 grams whole milk
- 100 grams unsalted butter, melted, plus more for greasing the pan
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- 200 grams all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan
- 8 grams baking powder
- 1 tablespoon bitter cocoa powder
- 1 pinch salt
- 150 grams toasted hazelnuts, finely minced
- Powdered sugar, to serve
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 175°C/350°F, then butter and dust with flour a 22 cm/9inch round cake pan.
- Break the eggs in a large bowl, add the sugar, and whisk until the eggs are pale and light.
- Whisk in the whole milk, the melted butter, and the olive oil, and mix until you get a smooth, liquid batter.
- Sift the all-purpose flour with cocoa powder, baking powder and salt, then add them to the better along with the hazelnut flour. Stir to incorporate all the ingredients, paying attention to remove all the lumps. You’ll have a smooth, dense batter now.
- Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and transfer to the hot oven.
- Bake the cake for about 45 minutes, until puffed up and golden brown.
- Remove the cake from the oven and transfer it to a wire rack to cool down.
- When the cake is cold, dust it with powdered sugar.
- The hazelnut cake can be kept on the counter, covered with a paper napkin or wrapped in a clean kitchen towel, for 3 to 4 days.
So, will I still write on the blog?
This Post Has 17 Comments
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
I was gifted several pounds of hazelnuts and made this cake today as a thank you. The cake was shared and many said it was delicious. One person (whose opinion on food I value) said that it was the perfect torte, light, not too sweet, lovely hazelnut, moist with a good crust. So, thank you so much!
Thank you, Emily! nothing better than using good hazelnuts for this cake!
Fantastic recipe!
Is there a gluten free version for this recipe please?
Hi Michaela, I have never tried a gluten free version of this cake, sorry!
Just replace the flour with a gluten-free all-purpose flour and the recipe will work just fine. Also recommend making your own version of Baker’s Goop (you can search for it (equal parts GF flour, shortening, and oil) to use instead of buttering and flouring the pan because GF flour tends not to incorporate as well into baked goods when used as a non-stick agent, so you’ll likely have a dusting of it on your cake if you use the traditional butter and flour method. However, you can use a pie crust brush to just brush it off if you like.
is there any way to blend hazelnuts instead of using the flour?
Ciao Amirah, yes, you can use finely blended hazelnuts instead of flour, it works just as well!
Yumm. Super easy to make, nice nutty flavor and just the right sweetness. If you want it sweeter sprinkle a little extra confectioners sugar. I reduced the flour slightly and added ground flax seed. This recipe is a keeper.
thank you, Bec!
I used sour cream instead of milk and not having “plain” olive oil, I used lemon infused olive oil. Just yummy!
Sounds like a lovely combination!
This cake was bone dry! Way too much dry ingredients to wet ratio. I felt like it was way off even when I was mixing it together – I should have trusted my instincts. It was inedible and I wasted so many expensive hazelnuts! I don’t think it even needs flour in it at all, very weird recipe.
Hello Sam, I am sorry it didn’t work for you. As you can see from other comments, it worked beautifully for other people.
But you do need flour, because hazelnuts do not have gluten, as it would be difficult to keep the crumbs together without it.
I also found the batter incredibly dry. Perhaps because I used hazelnut flour rather than minced nuts. I have added quite a bit extra of milk and still so so stiff, more like overly dense brownie batter, not an appropriately dense cake batter. Baking right now. I hope it comes out edible! Live and learn.
I’m planning on making this cake using the metric measurements. When I weighed out the whole hazelnuts, 150 g was a little over 1 cup but I see on the us measurements that it calculates 2 cups . Possibly that’s why it didn’t work out for a previous commenter?
It might be that, Lindsay! thank you!!